


On the Road to Garreg Mach

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Drinking, F/M, General Shenanigans, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Post-Time Skip, Spoilers for Post-Time Skip, and if both of them would go to therapy, for the love of god somebody please teach me how to use tags, general hand holding that has emotional significance, general squabbling, in keeping with my PG-13 rating there is exactly one F-bomb, most Blue Lions are mentioned, there's more NPC death than I originally intended, there's some angst, there's some fluff, there's some ingrid/sylvain if you squint, there's some questionable battle strategy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-01-02 13:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix make their way back to Garreg Mach for a joyless Millennium Festival. News of a nearby bandit attack sets them off their course and forces Felix into a reunion earlier than he expected.





	1. Gambit

**Author's Note:**

> So, in Annette’s paralogue you find out that her uncle has ostensibly sided against Dimitri and is unable to give her troops or supplies. For this story, I’m acting under the assumption the he had a lot more flexibility before the Blue Lions were reunited and a ragtag band of rebels was formed. I ask that you enter into this imaginative space with me, otherwise the plot makes no fucking sense.
> 
> I love Felix and his trash life and his trash friends with all my heart, and I hope the following words don’t reveal how much of my own trash life I’m shamelessly projecting onto Anxiety Icon Annette Dominic.

They didn’t make it to Garreg Mach Monastery that night.

In retrospect, Ingrid realized her plan had been ambitious – perhaps overly ambitious. If they had left from Galatea, as she had originally planned, they would have saved half a day’s journey and arrived at the village outside the monastery with days to spare before the Millennium Festival. But her plans had changed once she’d received a letter from Sylvain – he had negotiated supplies and troops from House Fraldarius for their journey, and Rodrigue requested they gather at his family estate before setting out on their journey to the monastery.

Ingrid suspected, reading the letter, that Sylvain’s “negotiation” consisted of annoying Felix until he agreed to help, but she wasn’t about to turn down offers of assistance, if House Fraldarius could spare them. Not in this war. Not where they were going.

Plus, if she was reading through the lines correctly, that meant that Felix had finally agreed to come to the promised Millennium Reunion. Felix had begun sulking about the reunion within five minutes of Prince Dimitri eliciting the vow from the Blue Lions. Every reference Ingrid made to it following that night was met with an eye-roll and a muttered comment about sentimental nonsense. Ingrid wondered if the news that the prince was dead had shocked Felix into a rare moment of earnestness. Earnestness was a weakness Sylvain capitalized on at every opportunity; Ingrid knew that better than just about anyone else. Still, it got her a standout swordmaster, a week’s supply of food for a small group, and a handful of armed guards for journey, so she wasn’t about to complain.

The extra distance set them back, of course, and a larger traveling party and wagon would always move slower than the original plan of Sylvain and Ingrid traveling unaccompanied on horseback. Still, they might have been able to push their pace and their luck and stick to Ingrid’s carefully mapped itinerary if it hadn’t been for the bandits.

Well, technically the bandits weren’t actually the problem. The party had enough shiny swords and heavy armor for most thieves and ne’er-do-wells in the area to keep their distance. It was the scrawny squire that really threw a wrench into Ingrid’s plan. She’d planned their route to avoid skirmishes. It was harder to avoid a desperate child, especially when he’s running directly at you and waving his arms.

“Good sirs! Good sirs!” he cried, yelling to get their attention even as he barreled directly down the path they travel. “I beg your assistance.”

With a motion, Felix drew their accompanying guard to a halt. Ingrid and Sylvain dismounted to speak to the boy. Felix followed at a distance – years of traveling together and the trio had developed an unspoken rule that Felix was never the right person to handle the talking.

“Noble men of House Fraldarius,” the squire began, glancing at the livery of the guards and launching into the proper etiquette he’d no doubt been studying nonstop since he entered his service as a squire. “And noble lady of . . . probably also House Fraldarius?” he ventured, squinting at Ingrid. “I bring an urgent message from my Lady, the noble heir of - -” his well-practiced spiel was interrupted by a coughing fit, and he doubled over, trying to catch his breath. Ingrid wondered how long he had been running for. Felix gave her a look that clearly said _Can we please get on with this_.

Ingrid bent down to one knee to make herself at eye level. “You can skip the formalities, for now,” she said, trying to make her voice sound encouraging. “Just tell us what’s going on.”

The boy’s eyes grew wide and began to fill with tears. “Please,” he stuttered, still gasping to regulate his breathing. “Please, you have to help her. There are too many of them for us to fight.”

Ingrid heard Felix mutter to Sylvain, “Should’ve stuck with the formalities.” She shot him a glare, and then turned back to the young squire.

“Who needs help?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and gentle. “Who is fighting you?”

Ingrid did not consider herself to be a particularly soothing presence in the world, on the whole. But she seemed to put on a convincing enough act to gain the squire’s trust. He nodded, and took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was a little stronger.

“We were on the road the Garreg Mach Monastery when it happened. The main one, where the trade routes used to be,” he began. Ingrid tried nodding encouragingly, worrying that asking follow-up questions would only delay the story. “We thought we’d be able to get there by tonight,” he continued. “We realized the bandits had circled us too late to change course. There are. . . so many of them. More of them than us, we’re a small party. I wanted to fight. I can fight. But my Lady sent me through the back road, to the northern path. This path. She said if I had any chance of finding help, it would be here.” He paused, looking at the group with a sudden realization. “I guess she was right!”

“Right, okay,” Ingrid said, straightening up and looking to Sylvain and Felix, a picture of the situation finally beginning to form in her mind. “A bandit attack. Not unexpected this close to Garreg Mach; reports say it’s been overrun in recent months.” She turned back to the boy. “And who are you traveling with? Who’s being attacked, exactly?”

The squire blushed, ducking his head. “Right. Sorry, I thought - - did I not lead with that part? I am in the service of House Dominic, I travel with the Lady Annette Fantine Dominic.”

Ingrid heard a clatter behind her and turned. Felix had dropped his sword. Ingrid shot him another look – had he been juggling it or something, what was he even _doing_ – but Sylvain broke into the conversation.

“No way, _Annette_?” he said. “What are the chances?”

Ingrid’s mind was racing, trying to form a plan of action. “Presumably Annette is traveling to the millennium reunion as well,” she said. “That road would lead straight from Dominic to the monastery.” Ingrid chewed on her lower lip, a bad habit that had only intensified over the past five years. “House Dominic has been in a delicate position these past few months,” she continued. “It stands to reason that her uncle was unable to equip her with a proper escort without attracting questions from those sympathetic to the Empire.”

Ingrid felt a flash of guilt, realizing she could have easily asked Annette to join their traveling party. Had she even sent Annette a letter in the past five years since she left the monastery? Drifting away from former classmates wasn’t a character flaw or even that unusual, but Ingrid was beginning to worry her social carelessness was about to have fatal consequences.

Ingrid was not one to dwell in depressing hypotheticals, however. Not when a solution posed itself so easily. If Annette was in trouble, they would go fight some bandits until she wasn’t in trouble any more. Problem solved.

And so Ingrid found herself crouched on a mountain overlook between Felix and Sylvain, surveying a field that had become a battlefield. Sylvain had been all for charging into the battle as fast as possible, ideally with a battle cry that he could invent along the way. But Ingrid wasn’t about to get the entire group killed – if they could take a moment to orient themselves, she figured, they might be able to gain the advantage.

From their vantage point, Ingrid could see the bandits forming a large circle around a smaller party. The travelers were pushed up against a forest, the road on either side of them now surrounded with bandits. The side road that the squire had taken was effectively blocked off now, leaving them no means of escape. And they were vastly outnumbered.

Sylvain gave a low whistle. “That’s bad,” he muttered. “That’s really bad.” The pause hung in the air before he asked the question they all were thinking: “Do you think Annette . . . do you think we’ve still got time? Or have they already . . .”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. A flash of light caught their attention, and Ingrid turned her eyes back to the traveling party on the field as beams of light fell shot through the air and slammed in the front line of bandits, knocking them back violently.

“Yeah, that’s her,” Felix said. “Looks like she’s doing fine.”

  
  
“There’s no way she can take them all out, though,” Sylvain said. “Mages don’t last forever, and one bad swing of an axe - -”

“Stop talking and start strategizing,” Felix snarled through gritted teeth. “Are we just each taking ten bandits or is this a high score thing or what?”

Ingrid felt a ball forming in the pit of her stomach. “That’s the problem, though, right?” she said, looking at her companions and then back to the field. “It’s not just that House Dominic is outnumbered – _we’re_ outnumbered. Three officers and a guard battalion can’t take on this many bandits. We’ll never be able to rout them.”

A sickening silence filled the air. Ingrid remembered the ethical problems she and Felix used to argue about in school – is it better to send your men to die or leave a bystander to die? Was action inherently the noble course? Ingrid never wanted to take the side of inaction in those debates, but debates seemed desperately, foolishly theoretical now. One letter, Ingrid thought, cursing inwardly. One letter and they wouldn’t even be here, silent and scared and without a plan.

“Wait, though.”

Ingrid broke out of her spiral of panic and turned towards the voice. Felix had stood up, peering over their ledge as another flash of sparks shot out across the field. “We don’t need enough soldiers to put them to rout. We don’t have to rout them at all.”

Ingrid’s mouth dropped open. “What are you even _talking_ about, Felix? This isn’t a time to decide you want to make the career change to diplomat and negotiator.”  
  
“No, listen,” Felix sounded almost excited, which was as close to actually excited as his voice ever got. “This is just a rescue mission, right? Who cares what happens to the bandits? All we care about is what happens to Ann – what happens to House Dominic. All we have to do is get them out of there.”

Ingrid shook her head. “Felix. They’re completely surrounded. To get to Annette’s party we have to break through the front lines somehow. And then _we’ll_ be surrounded.”

“Ingrid. Just listen to me.” Felix was pacing now, his nervous energy converted into constant movement. “You guys take the guard battalion and approach from the north side. Make yourselves look as big as possible, maybe do that battle cry Sylvain was promising.” Sylvain pumped his fists in the air but knew better than to interrupt his friend. Felix continued, “You don’t have to defeat them. You don’t have to fight them at all. Just lead them away, distract them, make a commotion. I’ll sneak around the back and pick off any stragglers, and Annette and her guards can escape into the woods. If you buy us enough time, we can make it far enough into the forest that they can’t catch up. And on horseback, you can easily outrun them once you’ve created enough of a distraction.”

Ingrid chewed her lower lip, taking the plan in. She didn’t have a better one. “There used to be a village on the other side of those woods,” she said slowly. “It could be the perfect rendezvous point. You cut through, and we’ll go around and meet you there.”

  
  
“It’s a plan, then,” said Felix shortly. He was already walk away from their overlook and pulling himself up onto his horse. He looked down at them briefly. “If I don’t meet you at the village by tonight, go on to the monastery without me.”

He turned his horse and quickly rode away.

Sylvain stared after him for a beat, and then turned to Ingrid. “You know what I like about Felix?” he said. He didn’t wait for a guess. “He always has the prettiest goodbyes.”

“Save your jokes for after you spear a bandit or two, Sylvain,” said Ingrid. She hurriedly stood up, dragging him after her. “We need to move; come on.”

***

Felix gripped the reins of his horse so fiercely that he could feel the leather cutting into his skin. He wasn’t a talented rider, especially compared to Sylvain and Ingrid. He generally relied on horses for transportation and relied on his own two feet for battle. But horses were fast, and at the moment he needed speed. Luring the bandits away would be meaningless if he couldn’t get to Annette and her men in time.

Gods above, _Annette_. Why did it have to be _her_.

She was like that at the academy, always throwing herself into danger with little regard for her own safety. She was so small that Felix had expected to encounter her on the back lines, safe among the healers or _maybe_ venturing out to where the archers were positioned. And yet, time and time again, she would duck in front of him, flinging wind and light and gods know what else directly at the front line of the enemies, clearing a path for Felix to charge forward. It never seemed to occur to her that she should stay back, that Felix didn’t need her help, that he could fight for the both of them just fine.

He had never in his life met anyone so frustrating.

It wasn’t just on the battlefield; it was everything about her. How she sang as she watered flowers in the greenhouse. How she threw herself into helping others with no regard for her own well-being. The absolute meaninglessness to her song lyrics. How she seemed to turn everything he said against him, even when he was trying (for once in his life) to be nice. Those obnoxiously catchy melodies. How she seemed to like everyone better than him but had burst into tears when he told her that he was leaving Garreg Mach. How he couldn’t stop hearing her stupid, _stupid_ songs even after he left. How she’d sent him countless letters with news of classmates and not-too-sweet-I-promise cookie recipes over the last five years, but evidently didn’t think to ask him for assistance when she needed an escort back to the monastery. How her songs weren’t stupid at all. How he kind of liked them.

He just didn’t understand her. That was the problem.

Well, and she was about to get extremely stabbed to death by a group of bandits. That was probably a bigger problem, if he had to rank things.

Felix pulled his horse to a momentary stop and surveyed the battlefield from ground level. The bulk of the fighting seemed to be pushing away towards the east – perhaps Annette was succeeding in fighting the bandits back, although it would only be a matter of time until they could break through the front line. Ingrid and Sylvain would undoubtedly want to continue that momentum, drawing the troops away in a north/northeasternly direction. That meant Felix needed to loop around for the southwest. Luckily for him, his trajectory seemed to be clear . . . except for a single skirmish directly to the south, a cluster of soldiers separated from the main fighting force.

He’d take care of that first, then.

Turning his horse towards the skirmish, Felix urged it into a gallop, carefully sizing up the situation. It was a 3-on-1 fight, with three bandits surrounding one of the guards from House Dominic. He clearly had the superior skill, but they outmatched him through sheer numbers. Not very sporting of them, Felix thought to himself as he closed the distance between them. But he’d left behind the sportsmanship of tournaments years ago.

The group heard his approach well before he arrived, heads turning in his direction at the sound of approaching hoofbeats. If the guard was surprised by the turn of events, he didn’t show it – capitalizing on the momentary distraction, he plunged his lance into the nearest bandit, who was temporarily too disoriented to block the attack. Felix momentarily smiled – if that was a strange reaction to seeing a body fall to the ground, he would have to untangle those demons some other day. For now, it was just good to know that Annette at least had guards with some common battle sense.

He rode directly into the group, swinging his sword downward to catch the nearest bandit by the shoulder. In a one-on-one battle, these thieves didn’t stand a chance – they relied on numbers, not skill, to overpower travelers. Felix easily blocked the furious swings of the axe and found openings to attack with barely any effort. He was unsurprised when his opponent quickly crumpled to the ground.

He was more surprised when he felt a sharp, searing pain across his left side. Jerking, Felix swiveled his body to the left, facing the third and final bandit, who was armed with a rusty sword and a hungry expression. Felix winced, willing himself to stay seated on the horse and return to the fundamentals of his sword training. The wound was long and shallow rather than deep and dangerous, but he wasn’t dressed for a proper battle, and the sword had easily torn through his outer jacket. Felix’s vision flashed black momentarily. Then red. And then his hand took over and his sword was flying and the bandit was on the ground, dead before Felix could even feel properly angry at him.

Felix slid off his horse, drawing deep breaths through his nose and clutching his side, guiding himself through the pain through sheer willpower. It was easier on the ground; Felix was coming to realize he kind of hated horses. He remembered with no small amount of regret that he had left all his bandages in the supply wagon before rushing down the hill. Maybe he had a vulnerary somewhere. Maybe he should have taken a moment to gather supplies before dashing away like some idiotic knight in one of Ashe’s idiotic books.

Hands at his side drew Felix abruptly out of his meditation of self-hatred.

“Oooh, they really got you, sir. That’s going to need a healer, isn’t it.”

Felix flailed his hands wildly, waving the Dominic guard away from him as he jumped backwards. “What on earth - - what are you,” he sputtered, landing on a conclusive, “Don’t _touch_ me.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard did seem truly apologetic. Felix was unplacated. “It was awfully brave of you, rushing in like that. I’m very grateful. I wish I knew enough white magic to repay you, but lances and horses are all I’ve ever been good at.”

“Don’t worry about. Also, stop talking about it. Maybe just stop talking.” Felix didn’t really have time for gratitude right now, and didn’t have much use for it in the best of circumstances. “If you want to show you’re grateful, I need you to get back in the fi - - wait.” He interrupted himself. “Did you say you’re good with horses?”

The guard nodded, but waited for a beat of silence before speaking, clearly intimidated by Felix’s general hand waving and verbal snapping. “Yes, sir, that’s right. Lord Dominic couldn’t spare any for our guard, sir, but I generally am at my best when I’m on horseback. I’ve won some major jousting tournaments in my time, I’ll have you know. Of course, that was all before the war broke out - - ”

“Cool. Great. I love that,” said Felix grabbing his horse by the reins and leading him over to the knight. “Listen. I need to get to the main fighting force, and I do better on foot, now that I’m this close. My allies are going to come over that mountain at any moment now. I need you to join up with them. See if you can kill a few bandits in the process. Don’t let my horse die. You’ll be following the orders of a blonde woman, kind of scary, probably looks annoyed. You got all that?” He thrust the reins forward.

The guard blinked at him. Then he broke into a smile and grabbed the reins from Felix’s hand. “The goddess has sent you, sir,” he beamed at Felix. “I thought today would be my last when I saw those bandits approaching, but to be given a second chance to fight back, to be given a horse, it’s more than I could possibly dream - -”

His speech was cut off by the sound of far-off commotion. Felix turned quickly to look out on the battlefield. Ingrid was leading the charge with a precision of form that Felix begrudgingly envied – she should have been a knight, if life had been fair. Waves of panic spread through the bandits’ ranks as they realized that they were being attacked from behind, and the focus of the battle immediately shifted towards the small but ferocious cavalry that Ingrid commanded.

The main force of the bandits turned and charged towards Ingrid and her soldiers. If you weren’t paying attention, you might not realize how Ingrid subtly guided the battalion back, striking at the front lines and darting away to always stay out of reach. Felix could hardly believe it, but it looked like their plan might actually work.

Except, he realized, for the small force of bandits that hadn’t taken the bait. Felix frowned – why weren’t they staying with the main group? Looking closer at the group closer, Felix’s heart sank. A small force, clearly the elite fighters of the group, was forming a circle around an armored knight and his companion – a small, angry, spell-flinging redheaded mage.

Felix broke into a run towards the group. He hoped the soldier he had just saved wasn’t lying about those tournament wins; he probably needed that horse back eventually.

As he neared the circle of fighters, Felix began to pick up on a distinct pattern between Annette and her guard. As bandits would approach, sparks flew out of Annette’s hands, pushing them backwards or defeating them entirely. Any stragglers her knight could easily take care of. It was a good strategy – no bandit could get close enough to attack Annette, and no bandit lasted long enough to land serious blow on her protector. Felix breathed a sigh of relief as he drew closer to the action – as was so often the case in at the Officer’s Academy, Annette barely even needed him. She had the situation under control.

Or she did. Until she threw her arms forward at an approaching thief and nothing happened.

If Felix’s eyes widened in horror and disbelief, Annette’s eyes nearly doubled in size. Steeling herself, she threw her arms forward again. Nothing. A few sparks of light play around her fingers, but the bandits remained decidedly unincinerated. The careful teamwork of Annette’s plan relied on one crucial concept – that she would be able to use magic until all the bandits were gone. That concept was falling apart before her eyes.

Felix couldn’t make out the frantic directions she was giving to the guard that stood in front of her. But he could see the bandit raise his axe and swing. He couldn’t hear the sound of axe grinding against metal, but he could see the guard buckle against the blow and fail to make the counterattack.

The fighter landed the final blow. The knight fell to the ground.

Annette screamed. And Felix heard that.

A million of his worst nightmares were caught up in that scream. He’d woken up in a cold sweat more times than he could count over the years, dreaming of his friends torn apart as he watched, Sylvain laughing even after he died and Ingrid giving him one final disappointed look before dissolving through his fingers. Annette had her fair share of his nightmares, moments where he was too far away to save her, where he moved his sword arm and nothing happened, where her music was distorted and off-key and about dead, crawling, awful things as she faded away in his arms. Felix had always told himself, when he woke from those dreams, burying his face into his pillow like a pitiful child, that he would never see that happen, that his mind was a worse enemy than a battlefield could be. He realized with a sickening jolt that, like so many other things he told himself as he tried to fall asleep, this comfort was a lie. He knew even as he pushed himself forward that he would not reach her in time to fight off the half-dozen bandits that raised their axes against her.

And yet, as if by dream logic, the half-dozen axes never descended. Felix didn’t understand it at first as the leader of the men held his hand up, stopping his companions from moving forward. But Annette continued to be alive, desperately dropping to her knees to pull her captain of the guard closer to her, to try to see if there was any life left in him.

Felix was finally close enough to hear the bandit leader turn to his men and shout orders. Or maybe the leader just had a particularly loud and grating voice. That was generally all that was required to lead a group of thieves.

“That’s the last of them,” he snapped the surrounding men. “Go help the others. I can handle it from here. If we can pick off those knights then this just might be our lucky day.”

Watching the remaining thieves turn and run towards the main fighting force, Felix finally pieced the situation together. Of course the bandit leader wasn’t trying to kill Annette. A young noblewoman traveling with a small party through a desolate part of the country probably would have little on her in way of valuables – no, Annette herself was the valuable. Bandits didn’t have to know her exact family connections or that she had a crest to know that someone out there would probably pay a ransom for her. And if they found out she had a crest, that ransom would triple instantly.

Felix felt vaguely sick at the prospect. Still, this changed his strategy – Felix ducked behind a tree and began to make his way silently towards the pair. If Annette wasn’t in danger of immediate slaughter, then stealth was more important than speed. If he could sneak up on the bandit leader without being detected, he had a better chance of getting between the two of them before violence escalated.

The bandit walked slowly towards Annette, chuckling to himself. Frantically, she threw her arms out in front of her, but her fingers only sparked briefly. Felix heard Sylvain’s voice in the back of his mind – _Mages don’t last forever_. Felix wasn’t sure how many bandits Annette had taken down that day, but magic wasn’t limitless, even for someone with her training and power.

The bandit leader took a step closer. “You can stop fighting now, Freckles,” he said to her, his voice dripping with self-satisfaction. “I won’t hurt you if you just do what I say, you got that?”

Annette most certainly did not get that. She stumbled to her feet and took several steps backwards, alternating between looking at her shaking hand to try to will some magic out of it and glaring up at the bandit to show she wasn’t afraid. Felix drew in a breath as he watched them walk closer to hiding spot in the woods. One step closer. One step closer.

“You’ve got nowhere to run, you know. I don’t think that pretty dress is designed for running in anyways.”

Annette gave up on the magic. Her hand flashed to her side, and in an instant she had shifted into an offensive stance, her foot jutting forward, her hand clutching a small but sharp dagger.

Dimitri was always trying to make sure the mages had weapons. Annette must have listened.

“Say another word to me,” she hissed at the bandit looming over her. “And I’ll cut out your tongue.”

Felix realized the violence, at this point, had definitely escalated. Drawing his sword, he sprinted towards the pair.

The bandit leader made three crucial mistakes that Felix could tally as he ran through the underbrush, trying to balance his need to move quietly with the voice in his head that was screaming at him that he wouldn’t get there in time.

First, the bandit didn’t bother to check his surroundings. It was a rookie mistake. If he hadn’t been so focused on Annette, he might have noticed Felix charging directly behind him.

Second, he had the nerve – the absolute _gall_ – to touch Annette. Quickly closing the gap between them, the bandit easily grabbed her wrist, bending her arm backwards in a sickeningly unnatural direction until she dropped the dagger with a gasp.

Thirdly, most egregiously, he had _laughed_ at her as she cried out in pain. A whole host of factors could have held Felix back in that moment: the sharp pain in his side from the wound he’d never got around to tending, his own accursed perfectionism reminding him the risks of rushing in too quickly; the fire in his lungs that burned with every breath he took. All of those factors disappeared when that ugly brute laughed at her.

The bandit pushed Annette back, leveraging her wrist to fling her against a tree. As Felix closed the distance, he could see her eyes darting around, looking for her weapon, an escape route, a sizeable rock, anything that could help her out in this situation. The bandit laughed again.

Felix drew his sword, willing himself to keep running for another ten feet, another five feet.

“You’ll make this easier on everyone if you stop fighting, Freckles,” the bandit spat at Annette. “I’d hate to have to hear you scream again.”

Felix slashed across him wish the most violent upper swing he’d ever executed. The bandit leader let out a cry, convulsing. As he turned around to face his attacker, Felix swung again, the steel of his blade glinting in the sun. The bandit was most likely dead before he hit the ground.

For the first time since they left the academy, Felix and Annette made eye contact.

“Felix?” she whispered, leaning against the tree for support.

Time had changed her. Time had changed them all. Gone were her neat braided pigtails, her immaculate school uniform, her eager and anxious energy that radiated with every movement. Her fiery hair hung in loose waves to her shoulders, and if she hadn’t actually grown much taller, she seemed to hold herself with more confidence, as if she was more used to inhabiting the world. She also looked tired, and scared, and as if she might cry, but Felix imagined that was a change that would apply to anyone from his former house after the five years of worthless battles.

“Hey Annie,” he said, sheathing his sword and breaking eye contact almost immediately. “Got here just in time, eh?”

He peeked back at her. For a moment, he worried that she didn’t recognize him, despite the fact she’d just said his name. Her eyes, though wide, didn’t have the familiar joy of recognition he had come to depend on in Garreg Mach, her generally-sunny expression replaced by a look of wild panic. He could feel the sweat dripping down his face, the wound at his side oozing through his jacket, the way his hair was falling out of his ponytail and landing loose around his shoulders. So much for a grand entrance. As far as class reunions went, this was probably somewhere in the bottom five.

“Um.” Felix said. “I like your hair?”

“Felix,” Annette said again, her voice barely above her initial whisper. “It’s really you, right? I’m not - - I’m not imaging this?”

  
  
“Of course it’s me,” Felix said, bewilderment creeping into his voice. “Who else would it - -”

Annette cut him off as she ran forward, slamming into him with no apparent depth perception or concern for her own balance. Felix stumbled backwards, pulling her away from the corpse of the bandit that had lay between them and into the field behind them.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” she said, grabbing the front of his jacket as she buried her face in his shoulder. “I was so - - I didn’t think - - I was so certain - - ” her breaths were long and ragged and gasping between each word. Felix could feel her elbows pressing against him as she pulled herself closer.

“Hey. Hey. Don't cry.” Felix wasn’t entirely sure what to do in this moment, but even he could admit his words softened compared to the way he snapped directions at Sylvain or Ingrid or just about anyone else. He awkwardly put his hands on the back of her head, which felt wrong. He moved them down, one on her back and one around her waist. He wasn’t sure this improved the situation, but Felix kind of felt like he only got two tries at this before it just got weird. Annette’s continued to draw disjointed, ragged breaths as she pressed her face in his shoulder. He tried speaking again, “It’s okay, Annette. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Felix made two crucial mistakes that he would later tally to himself as he replayed that moment over and over in his mind.

The first mistake was how badly he wanted to stay like that, his arms around his former classmate, keeping her away from the bandits and the battles and the utter mess that had become of Fódlan. The first mistake was feeling her hands clutching his shirt and her forehead resting against his heart and focusing on how small she was, how soft her hair was, how much he had missed her in the five long years when he could hear her songs on repeat in his head, nonsensical and repetitive and perfect.

The second mistake was not bothering to check his surroundings. A rookie mistake.

He realized it as Annette pulled away suddenly, as she jerked back at a sound he had somehow blocked out, her eyes growing wide in horror as she looked over his shoulder.

Felix spun around, a lifetime of training and half a lifetime of battle preparing him for the ambush. He barely had time to throw up his sword in defense before the bandit brought an axe down, hard and reckless and more prepared than Felix could possible be in the moment.

  
Felix felt his knees buckle as he pushed against the weight of the axe. Then he felt the air change, a static buildup he hadn’t felt in years but would recognize until the day he died.

He barely had a chance to disengage from the parry before lightening bolts slammed into the bandit. The rogue stumbled back, clearly caught off guard. Felix cut him down in two strokes of his sword.

He turned back just in time to see Annette pitch forward. He lunged to awkwardly catch her one-handed – dropping his sword could be deadly if that bandit had a friend. He struggled to hold Annette upright, lowering his shoulder to give her extra support to lean into. Felix quickly scanned the horizon. No more bandits approaching. The now-dead second-in-command must have come back to deliver a report, or been suspicious enough to double-check on his boss. Luckily, he wasn’t suspicious enough to bring backup.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Annette mumbled into his neck.

Felix sheathed his sword and looped his hands under her elbows. Even with his support, Annette was struggling to stand. Felix didn’t tend to use magic in battle situations so he wasn’t entirely clear on the details, but he’d heard, from Mercedes and Annette chattering at countless breakfasts, that the magic was limited, that it only went so far. Annette had certainly seemed out of options when he ran towards her moments ago; her sudden surge of magic had probably saved Felix’s life right then, but Felix worried that it had taken a chunk of Annette with it.

“No, you really shouldn’t have,” he mumbled back, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

Annette moved slightly backwards to look up and him and give him a scowl, but didn’t quite have the energy. She sunk back against him. “A thank you would be nice, you know.”

  
  
“I could’ve handled it on my own. You worry too much.”

“I forgot that you’re the worst person I know, Felix,” Annette said flatly. Felix craned his neck to see if she was smiling – it felt like she was smiling – and she looked up at him, her wide blue eyes inches away from his own. If Felix had been planning a witty retort, he completely lost it.

It took him a moment to remember that they were still, for all intents and purposes, on an active battlefield. Looking away, which was both an agony and a relief, Felix glanced around the surrounding area again.

“Ingrid and Sylvain are buying us time,” he told Annette, trying to snap his brain back into the present situation. “But we’ve got to get out of here before the force of that brigade doubles back on us. Can you walk?” He loosened his grip on her, stepping back slightly to give her a chance to test her legs.

Annette took a hesitant step, then another. Felix could feel her arms shaking under him. “I think so,” she said, breaking away from him and trying a few steps on her own. “It’s not an injury or anything; but magic can really take it out of you.” At this, she stumbled, proving her words. Felix stepped forward and took hold of her arm once more.

“Once we get some distance between us and them, we can stop and rest,” he said by way of assurance. He tugged her towards the woods behind them. “The forest is our best way out; I think we’ll be able to lose them in the trees. Stay close.”

Annette ignored his last directive, pulling away from him to turn back out to the battlefield. “But . . . my men. It wasn’t just me out here, Felix. I need to - -”

“We can’t, Annette, there isn’t time,” Felix urged, gently pulling her back toward him. She turned around to glare at him, her eyes defiant. “I’m sorry, but they’re gone. You can’t bring them back from the dead.” Annette turned from him again, looking at the surrounding bodies that had fallen closest to her now-destroyed supply wagon. Felix tried to remind himself that she was every inch the officer he was and, as a healer, was probably more equipped to deal with the dead and the dying. In this moment, there was only the dead.

Annette looked out silently, her face grim. When she spoke, it was so low that Felix almost had to lean in to hear her. “I saw the captain of our guard fall; he had stayed close to protect me as the others fanned out. I know he’s gone. The rest. . . ” she suddenly cupped her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, turning to Felix wordlessly. He understood her meaning without words.

“There’s nothing you can do now, Annette,” Felix said. “Save your prayers for Garreg Mach; you need to make it out of here alive.” He once more began to pull her towards the forest, towards their one chance of escape. He felt a shudder run through her small frame and drew her in towards him, moving his arm around her tiny shoulders as he swatted the first branch out of the way and led them into the trees. If he did it more for comfort or for guidance he couldn’t say. After a moment of silent, shuddering steps, he added, “I’m so sorry we didn’t get here sooner.”

Annette took a deep, steadying breath and leaned into him. Her steps were still faltering; an on-foot escape through unstable terrain was clearly not the ideal situation for her physical or mental state at the moment.

But an on-foot escape through unstable terrain was the only choice they had, so it was the choice they took. There was no clear and easy path through the woods, and the branches hung low and close together. Gnarled roots and dead leaves made walking a slippery and stumbling affair, and overgrown shrubbery seemed to grow thorny fingers for the express purpose of reaching out and digging into their ankles or catching on loose fabric. Felix debated the merits of taking out his sword and cutting a path in front of them, but the dangers of leaving such a traceable path probably outweighed the benefits of a faster progression. Felix was grateful that Annette had settled against his right side and not his left – although the gash across his side wasn’t deep, it still pulsated with a pain that sharpened whenever he moved too quickly. Annette never quite seemed to catch her footing with confidence – Felix wished his brilliant plan had involved about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for the exhausted mage rather than the worst nature hike of his life – but as they continued deeper into the forest, Felix became less worried that he would witness another collapse. Her energy, if not returning, was at least stabilizing, despite their hurried pace. They walked in silence at first, the gravity of the situation and their own labored breathing making conversation difficult.

Annette finally broke the tense stillness between them. “Do you think,” she said hesitantly. “That any are still alive? Of my battalion, I mean. I could account for less than half of the guards, back there. But the bandits came on so fast, I couldn’t keep track . . . do you think the others could have made it out?”

Felix looked at her, small and stumbling and grasping for hope. He wasn’t one for sugar-coating: it seemed cruelly optimistic at best, and downright dishonest at worst. And lying to Annette seemed in particular to him to be a capital crime. Still.

“I found one of your men on the sidelines of the fight,” he said, trying to work through her hypothetical hope. “I sent him to join Ingrid and Sylvain. If others were able to join him, if they were able to meet up with the main force . . . I don’t know, Annette. But it’s possible.” He paused, then remembered the one piece of good news he did have. “We did meet your squire. If all goes to plan, he’s riding safely in the back of a supply wagon right now.”

Annette drew in a quick breath, her eyes momentarily brightened. “He made it to you? Of course, that’s how you knew . . . ” she trailed off, then started a new sentence entirely, a narrative habit Felix had missed. “Of course there’s always danger traveling these days, especially so close to Garreg Mach. But we didn’t expect such a large and coordinated group to attack . . . Alm wanted to fight, he wanted to stay with us.” Felix gathered from context clues that Alm was the name of the squire. Or maybe it was Colm; Annette was speaking rather fast. “But I told him to run. I needed him to run. Felix, he’s younger than we were when we - - when we were at the academy. I couldn’t watch him die. I couldn’t. I figured, even if he didn’t find you, at least he could escape.”

  
“That’s something I don’t understand,” Felix said, pulling Annette out of the way of a large root directly in her path. “How did you know we were going to be on that road?”

  
  
Annette looked up at him. “I didn’t,” she said, with unadorned, simple sincerity. “It was a gamble. But I knew that I was sending him down a road that would lead straight to Castle Fraldarius. And I knew you’d be there, at the millennium festival. That you’d have to travel to get there. That you’d put off travel until the last minute.” Felix let out a snort at this. She wasn’t wrong. Annette shrugged slightly. “I took the gamble. It paid off.”

“A hell of a risk,” Felix muttered as he held up a low hanging branch and ushered Annette underneath it. “I never had much to say in favor of the reunion, I’m not sure why you thought I’d be there at all.”

“Dimitri made us promise, Felix. He made us all promise we’d return.”

  
  
“Dimitri is dead, Annette. You know that.”

She stopped, actually stopped, for the first time since they began their woodland march. Felix felt his heart skip in a moment of concern – had he pushed her too far? could she no longer keep up? But no, Annette merely took a step back to stare at him, a strange, intense look on her face.

“You promised _me_, Felix. And Ingrid, and Sylvain, and Mercie and Ashe and Dedue and all of us. The Blue Lions weren’t just Dimitri.”

Felix looked away. “Pretty words. Do you think that’ll be enough to get us through this war?”

“It got us this far, didn’t it?” Annette whispered.

For what seemed like the millionth time that day, Felix scanned his surroundings. They were pretty well buried in the center of the woods at this point – his gambit appeared to have worked. Ahead of them lay the village, their companions, and eventually, Garreg Mach, in all its crumbled glory and shaky promises of reunion. Behind them lay the battlefield, with its bodies, its regrets, its danger that still hounded them should they make a wrong decision. But as they stood in the forest in that moment, they were alive, and they were together, and they had successfully begged the goddess for one more day to make things right.

Felix nodded hesitantly. “I guess it did.” He held out his hand to her once more. “Walk or rest? We should be far enough away now to rest if you need it; I don’t want to deal with you fainting on me.”

Annette placed her hand in his. “Walk, I think. I’m not as bad as I was before.” She took stepped closer, once again settling into the crook of Felix’s arm. “It’s easier with you here, in a way,” she added.

Felix looked away to hide that the words made him blush. “Very well,” he said, beginning to walk. Clinging to each other, the two reunited classmates pressed further into the brush, moving in tandem towards their former life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this performance, the role of the squire was played by Angus McDonald.
> 
> Between you me and the fencepost, I’m not entirely sure Felix’s grand plan is a good one. But this is a game series where the main tactician one time solved a problem by lighting their OWN SHIPS on fire, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that maybe we’re not all here to discuss the intricacies of military strategy. 
> 
> This was originally supposed to be a one shot, but once I cleared 10k words I realized that was a lot to read in a single sitting. So it’s two chapters now! The second half is mostly just a lot of feelings, so tune in next week if you like that sort of thing. I promise double the angst and at least 1 passably funny joke.


	2. Rest

By the time Felix and Annette got out of the forest, Ingrid had come up with a new plan. Ingrid’s plans had been the backdrop of Felix’s life for as long as he could remember. He had alternated between ignoring her, arguing with her, or putting up with her ideas with enough grumbling that Sylvain and Dimitri and the rest knew that he could have come up with something better, if he’d tried. But today, Felix was glad for Ingrid’s patently ridiculous drive to put everything in order as efficiently as possible. For once in his life, he didn't have the energy to disagree.

It had taken him and Annette hours to get through the dense forest on foot. Blessedly, the bandits either didn’t think it worth their while or didn’t have the manpower to follow after them, but it was still slow going through the underbrush. More than once, Annette had stopped to brace herself against a nearby tree, taking deep, shuddering breaths as she tried to control the shaking that had spread from her hands to her entire body. Felix hovered by her, feeling useless, his own recent injury completely gone from his mind when he looked at Annette doubled over in pain and exhaustion. Blood had completely soaked through the left side of his jacket at this point, and he couldn’t help but feel that his steps were growing lopsided as they continued walking. He was beginning to lose track of whether Annette was leaning on him for support or he was leaning on her.

It was hell. But it didn’t last forever. And, miraculously, when they finally found their way out of the trees and the shrubbery and the general muck, Ingrid and Sylvain were waiting for them in a nearby field, surrounded by a small battalion and relatively unharmed. Sylvain had been so relieved to see them that he raised Annette entirely off the ground with the hug he gave her, and even Ingrid showed a rare glimpse of sentimentality as she pressed her hand against Felix’s bloody jacket, snapping at him to go get some bandages from the supply wagon.

Ingrid had already taken inventory by the time they got there. Their own battalion had suffered minimal loss, with no casualties and only a handful of treatable injuries among them. As for Annette’s battalion, a respectable five men had managed to join up with the group, including the squire, who greeted Annette with a flurry of tears and words, and the soldier Felix had met on the field, who gratefully returned the horse to Felix with a string of compliments that Felix didn’t really listen to as he awkwardly tried to bandage his wound. These men were more injured, admittedly not fit to fight any longer, but their survival was remarkable in and of itself.

Ingrid had also formulated a plan for how to proceed from there. The road to the monastery was increasingly dangerous, and traveling with injured soldiers could potentially be a liability. Furthermore, the Millennium Festival – or what remained of it – was fast approaching, and a larger group would have a slower pace. Instead, Ingrid proposed a split in the traveling party. The battalion provided by House Fraldarius would escort House Dominic’s guard back to Kingdom territory and ensure their safety until they could receive medical attention. Outwardly, this was a show of support for Annette and her territory. More strategically, Felix recognized that this was a diplomatic ploy that would put House Dominic in the debt of House Fraldarius, a move he couldn’t possibly object to given the precarious position of the Kingdom in the last few months. With their battalion returning to the north of the kingdom, Ingrid proposed that she, Sylvain, Felix, and Annette continue on their own, a small traveling party that could move swiftly towards the monastery and avoid the attention of further bandits.

If he hadn’t been bleeding, and dizzy, and beside himself with worry that a tiny mage was going to collapse and never wake up, Felix might have found a problem with Ingrid’s suggestion. He did manage a complaint that they were traveling by horseback, but he pushed Sylvain away as his friend jokingly suggested that they could share a horse if Felix was so afraid of the creatures. But overall, Felix was too tired to argue, and Annette and Sylvain were more than willing to agree to Ingrid’s idea. The afternoon already fading away, they sent off their respective battalions down a safer road, and mounting their horses, the four continued towards the monastery.

They took three horses, not four. To his credit, Sylvain offered to let Annette ride with him without a hint of flirtation. Maybe she looked so exhausted that even Sylvain knew to be worried. Or maybe he just remembered from academy days that Annette had extremely sharp elbows and was not afraid to use them. But as they rode off in the direction of the monastery, Felix realized he was more grateful to his friend than wary of his intentions, even if he was a bit bitter that he was not a good enough rider to make Annette the same offer.

***

The inn they found that night was run down, but it would do for the evening. Ingrid had originally wanted to avoid inns and towns altogether, in order to more quickly arrive at the monastery, but Sylvain strenuously argued for the comforts and facilities of an establishment.

“After all,” he argued, throwing his arm around Annette, “we’re traveling with a _lady_ now.”

Ingrid had rolled her eyes but was finally swayed by her concern for the horses, who could use a night inside and the care of a stablehand, if she could find one. And so they made their way to the nearest town, avoiding the main trade roads and cautiously scouting for another attack. In that, at least, they were lucky – the quartet arrived at a sizeable town as the sun hung low in the sky, threatening to peek below the horizon.

The beds were rickety and uncomfortable; the water provided for baths was lukewarm at best. Felix had zero hopes for the food and a deep fear that a mediocre bard would appear at any moment to try to instill merriment in the place. But they were able to find two rooms on the second floor, and the woman behind the bar cheerfully told Ingrid she would send a boy along to tend to the horses once he was finished serving dinner to the guests. It was better than sleeping on the ground.

Felix sat at a table with Sylvain, sipping an ale that hadn’t quite gone bad and willing himself not to prod at the ad hoc bandage he’d applied to his side after bathing. It wasn’t the worst battle he’d been in, and peering in the mirror as he stepped out of the tub and dried off his hair, he was pleased to see all his insides were still more or less on the inside and seemed content to remain that way. Still, he hoped that some monks had made their way to Garreg Mach by the time he arrived. He had become more dependent on healing magic than he liked to admit, and the feeling of the immediate pain of a new injury felt strange compared to the lingering, vague pain of a wound healed by magic.

“Where’s Ingrid?” whined Sylvain, stretching and looking around the generally quiet common dining area. “I’m getting hungry.”

“Upstairs, I guess,” Felix said, only half listening to his inevitable drinking companion.

“Geez, what’s taking her so long?”

“Why would I know that?” asked Felix, taking another sip of his drink. He stared absently at the fireplace at the other side of the room, wondering how many seconds of silence he could treasure before Sylvain started chatting up a nearby coat rack.

Even worse luck, Sylvain decided to chat up Felix.

“Soooooo,” he said, leaning forward with the glint in his eye that Felix had come to dread since childhood. A glint that meant Sylvain had an _idea_. “Good day for you, huh?”

Felix set down his mug and glared across the table at his traveling companion. “We all nearly died. Several times.”  
  


“Yeah but like,” Sylvain’s smile grew wider. Felix was vaguely reminded of a fox when Sylvain smiled like this. “Annette, right? You’ve got to be happy about that.”

Felix scowled. “We were successful in our mission. But the detour’s going to set us back; who knows if we’ll make it to Garreg Mach in time at all."

“Yeah but . . . .Annette.” Felix wanted to punch Sylvain’s singsong tone. He wondered how well-trained in brawling you would have to be to punch a voice.

“Please stop talking to me.”

“Oh come _on_, Felix.” Sylvain pounded his hand on the table with an energy he only seemed to have when he was impressing girls and mocking Felix. “You _have_ to be happy to see her. You were always following around after her back when we were at school together.”

“I did no such thing.”

Sylvain raised his voice up an octave and a half: “‘Is Annette on greenhouse duty today? Does Annette have the notes from yesterday’s lecture? Oh, I’m Felix and I’m going to go to the library to see if any mages are studying even though I haven’t read a book since I was ten because all I do is train.’” His impersonation sounded absolutely nothing like Felix.

“Why are you like this,” said Felix, blankly, the back of his neck growing hot. As an afterthought he added, “I read all the time,” directed more to his beer than to Sylvain.

“I’m just saying, this must be a pretty good day for you if you’re wanting to pick that thread up again,” Sylvain grinned again. His teeth were definitely fox-like.

“She almost died. I cannot stress this enough, we all almost died.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t, right? You come running in all hero-like and pull her out of certain doom? Girls love that knight-in-shining-armor stuff. She’s going to be all over you when she comes down.”

The sudden memory of Annette’s fingers grabbing at his shirt flooded into Felix’s mind. He could practically feel her nails scraping against his skin through the fabric. Felix shook his head to try to clear it. Knight-in-shining armor, indeed. Annette had come within inches of death that afternoon, had pushed herself to the very edges of her existence, had been pulled away from her fallen soldiers before she could even properly pray for them. And here he sat, blushing at the thought of her like some schoolboy. And there was Sylvain, spinning some chivalrous tale as if Felix was noble, as if he was good. It was so ugly to him in that moment, his selfishness and desire wrapped in a pretty lie about duty and honor. The thought came into his mind uninvited: that Glenn would never have thought like this; that Glenn never expected anything in return. He clutched his mug tighter and closed his eyes, willing the thought away. Glenn was a fool and Sylvain was a cad and he, Felix, was so stupid and so weak and he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Annette clung to him. She held on to him as if he mattered, as if he could save her not just from the bandit he had cut down, but from the entire awful nightmare the world had turned into.

“I'm just saying, you actually act a hero for once in your life and you’re _not_ going to embrace that moment - - ”

“For the love of fuck, shut_ up_, Sylvain,” Felix snapped, slamming his mug of ale onto the table. Liquid sloshed over the brim of the mug and the entire table momentarily tilted towards him. “For once in your life, just please, shut up.”

War changed people. War changed them all. It was strangest seeing it happen with his oldest friends, the people he had grown so accustomed to that he assumed they would be that way forever. Felix knew what Sylvain was like when he pushed him too far, the momentary look of hurt in his eyes before he would awkwardly redirect, changing the conversation to something new. He didn’t see that flash of sadness anymore. Instead, Sylvain’s smile grew wider, but stopped reaching his eyes altogether. His gaze became hard and steely but his grin remained in place. You can’t hurt me any more, his eyes seemed to say. Compared to what I’ve seen, you’re nothing.

That’s not what he said out loud, of course. He took a sip of his own drink and focused his smile on Felix. “If you insist,” he said, too lightly, too easily. He turned and flagged down the girl who was alternating between serving tables and running back to the kitchens to prepare meals. “Excuse me, miss, my friend here says he wants another round of drinks for the table. On his tab, if you don’t mind. No rush on that; I know it’s a busy night.” Sylvain winked as he said it.

The inn was basically empty. The joke wasn’t funny. The girl laughed anyways. Felix wondered if she noticed how Sylvain’s smile no longer connected to his eyes, how there was something strange and desperate in his need to get a laugh from the room. Her giggles appeared genuine. Felix wished he was anywhere else in the world; an active battlefield may not be more pleasant, but it was at least more understandable.

He was simultaneously saved and trapped by Ingrid, who arrived at the table alone, balancing a tray of bread and sliced meat that she had picked up from the bar. She glanced at the retreating girl and then towards Sylvain, whose smile had already begun to fade now that he was no longer performing for a captive audience.

“Leave her alone, Sylvain,” Ingrid said, slamming the tray of food on the table and sinking into a chair. “We’ve got enough to worry about without being run out of town by some jealous husband or overprotective aunt.”

“Both of which have happened,” muttered Felix to himself, taking another sip of his drink. Maybe it was good Sylvain had ordered another round.

“Ingrid! With food!” cried Sylvain. “You’re an absolute angel, have I ever told you that?”

“Enough times that I’ve stopped listening altogether,” Ingrid said primly, taking a piece of bread and biting into it. She glanced a Felix, who was draining the last of his ale. “I hope that’s the first round for you, Fe,” she said, her voice more worried than judgemental. Felix wasn’t the type to go on a bender, but he’d lost enough drinking contests while at school that Ingrid tended to worry about him after two shots.

“Round one, don’t worry. It tastes awful,” Felix reassured her.

“Where’s Annette?” Sylvain asked, his mouth half-full of the roast beef sandwich he’d put together. Deciding it would be a good time to not make eye contact with anyone, Felix set to making himself dinner. The food was surprisingly good, given how bad the drinks had been. Maybe he was just hungry; almost dying tended to have that effect.

Ingrid winced slightly. “She didn’t want to come down. I asked them to send something up to our room.” She glanced at the empty beer mugs on the table, adding, “I’m not paying for these drinks, by the way. Just dinner. I gave most of our traveling funds to the battalion to get back home.”

“Don't worry, Felix has us covered,” said Sylvain, reaching for another piece of sliced ham.

Felix rolled his eyes and raised his empty glass in mock salute. Still, he didn’t want to stray too far from Annette, now that Sylain had brought her up. “How’s she doing?” he asked Ingrid, glancing momentary towards the stairs to their rooms.

Ingrid shrugged. “I mean, she didn’t seem great. Maybe she’s just tired? I don’t know, you’re the one who dragged her off the battlefield in the first place. How’d she seem back there?”

Felix scowled. “She seemed like she’d nearly been kidnapped or killed by a group of bandits and only got out alive because she watched several of her guard die.”

“Okay, so, you can read people,” Ingrid said, unimpressed with his sarcastic tone. “So just apply that to four hours later and I think you can figure out why she maybe doesn’t want to talk to any of us right now.”

“Fair enough,” Felix muttered.

“Is she going to be okay to travel tomorrow?” Sylvain asked.

Ingrid frowned slightly. “I’m no physician; I can’t say for sure. I think so?” She sighed. “Ironically, the one person who might be able to tell us that would be Annette, but good luck getting her to admit anything. I’m pretty she’d rather die than slow us down.”

“Please find a different phrase,” Felix said, his teeth gritted. Ingrid ignored him and continued on.

“I think the best we can do is plan to keep moving. If something changes, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Sylvain nodded, more solemn than general. “So it’s Garreg Mach tomorrow, right?” he asked, finishing off the last of his sandwich and eyeing the plate for seconds.

Ingrid pushed the tray over to him. “That’s the plan. We should have speed on our side, at least. If we leave close to daybreak we should be able to get to the monastery before nightfall. I wouldn’t want to be on the surrounding roads too close to dusk, if today is any indication of bandit activity.”

“And what do we do once we get there?” asked Felix, not for the first time. “Did you save enough travel funds for streamers and balloons?”

Ingrid gave him a scowl so intense that Felix felt a pang of guilt. Gods, he _was_ tired. “We’ve been over this before, Felix, literally no one thinks this reunion is going to be a party,” she snapped, pulling the food tray back over to her and angrily setting about making a sandwich. “Do you honestly think you and Sylvain can lead a solo charge on Cornelia’s forces? How’s that been working out for you these past few months?”

Felix glowered at her.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “At this point, any potential ally is worth meeting. If we can reunite the Blue Lions, we might be able put together a counter attack that actually has an impact on Cornelia. Leave the Empire to the Alliance for the next few months, and rebuild the kingdom. It’s a shot in the dark, but what else do we have.”

“You say ‘rebuild the Blue Lions’ like that’s even possible,” Felix said darkly. “How many of us are even left? The professor is gone. Dimitri is gone.”

“It would be a real get if we could find Dedue again,” said Sylvain, midway through a bite of his second sandwich. “That guy’s basically a one-man army.”

Felix frowned. “Has anyone even heard from him? Was he executed, too? It’s not like it was a public execution; we’d have no way of knowing.”

Sylvain shrugged slightly. “I don’t know, I’m just saying, if he’s at the monastery that would definitely make this trip worth it. Claude saw him cut down a tree with his bare hands once.

  
The silence that followed seemed unnatural to Felix’s ears. He glanced over at Ingrid, wondering why she didn’t have a rejoinder regarding the implausibility of bare-knuckle forestry or the unreliability of Sylvain’s sources. Instead, Ingrid was staring absently at the table in front of her, frowning slightly and no longer listening.

“You good, Ingrid?” Felix asked, gently prodding her with his foot.

She looked up, slowly. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, her voice sounding far away. “I’m just thinking about something the innkeeper said when I was getting us the rooms.”

“Yeah?” asked Felix, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

  
Ingrid sighed and leaned forward towards them. “There’s a rumor going around that a lone knight is attacking bandit strongholds and intervening in raids on villages. When I explained we’d had our own run-in with bandits today, he wanted to know if we were saved by this knight. Evidently, his work with a lance is unparalleled; he’s taking down entire armies single-handedly.”

“What, you think the Death Knight has a cousin?” asked Sylvain. “The Life Knight?”

“Lot of killing for a Life Knight,” Felix countered.

“Will you two stop talking and listen to me for five seconds?” Ingrid said. She looked at Sylvain directly. “The people in the villages are saying it’s the ghost of the former prince of Faerghus.”

“You believe in ghosts now?” asked Felix, unimpressed by this reveal.

Ingrid swiveled towards him. “No,” she said grimly. “I believe there wasn’t a public execution.”

Felix balked at this. “Be serious, Ingrid.”

“I _am_ being serious. What if he’s alive?”

“Sure, what if he’s alive,” snapped Felix. “And what if Saint Cichol flies by on a dragon. You can’t seriously be taking a random rumor from some total stranger seriously.”

“Felix, you have to admit it’s interesting,” Sylvain said. “At least it might be following up on once we get to the monastery. See who this Life Knight guy is.”

Felix stared at his friends in shock. Had everyone lost their minds except him?

Felix leaned forward towards them both. His voice was barely above a whisper, but he spat every word as if were a dagger. “We can’t make strategic decisions based on the hopeless optimism of a dying people,” he said, glaring at them both. “People will believe anything they can when they’re in crisis. Just because they want something doesn’t make it true.”

Ingrid stared at Felix for a moment. The look in her eyes was uncomfortably akin to pity; Felix hated it when she looked at him like that. “I’m sorry, Felix,” she said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up; I know you miss him.”

Felix drew in a sharp breath, but kept his voice level. “You shouldn’t have brought it up because it’s pointless information. How I feel – felt – about Dimitri is irrelevant. Also,” he added, staring at the empty chair beside them. “I don’t miss him. You can’t miss someone who was never there.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable quiet before Sylvain jumped in. “Whoever this Life Knight guy is, he’s good at fighting and beloved by the people,” he said, sensibly. “Probably worth getting him on our side. Once we get to Garreg Mach, we can figure out how to track him down.”

“Sure, do what you want,” Felix said flatly. The room suddenly felt way too hot; he needed to get away from this conversation. “I’m going to go check on Annette,” he said, abruptly pushing his chair away from the table and standing up. “I’ll be back.”

“I’m not sure she wants to see – ” Felix didn’t turn around as Ingrid called after him, so he missed the way Sylvain gently placed a hand on her arm, the way he slightly shook his head as she looked over at him.

***

If the light had been out underneath Annette’s door, Felix told himself, he would go find a tree to practice swinging a sword at, to buy himself time until Sylvain and Ingrid changed the subject. But light streamed out from underneath the door – Annette hadn’t gone to bed yet. Felix knocked lightly on the door. He heard Annette’s voice from inside – “Come in” – and carefully let himself into the room. The room was identical to his and Sylvain’s – two decrepit twin beds spaced a respectable distance from each other, a single bedside table between the two of them, a table with no chairs at the far end of the room by the door, a single window on the wall across from the door, staring out into the field behind the inn that led to the stables. Annette sat on top of the bed furthest away from the door, closest to the window. She’d turned her head to see who was walking in, but had clearly been sitting on the edge looking out the window before he arrived. She was wearing a night dress that was several sizes too large for her – Felix imagined that she’d borrowed it from Ingrid – and her hair fell loose to her shoulders. Felix wondered vaguely if she wore it like that all the time now – he was so used the two regimented braids that she stuck to so closely while at school; he could only remember a handful of times he’d seen her without them.

Felix glanced at the plate of meats and breads that was sitting on the table next to the door. “You know, I think the general idea of dinner is that you eat something,” he said, gesturing towards it.

She glanced briefly at the food, the back at him. “I’m really not hungry. I tried. I just . . . I’m not hungry.”

“Yeah, no, of course,” Felix muttered, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. He felt like an absolute idiot. “Don't worry about it. I didn’t come here to lecture you about eating; I just wanted to see if you were doing alright.”

For a moment, standing awkwardly in the center of Annette’s room, Felix wondered if he should just leave. Maybe it had been a mistake to come by at all; maybe he was just bothering her. But before he could make a move to leave, Annette shifted on the bed slightly, sliding down towards the foot of the bed and lightly patting the space next to her. She looked at him expectantly. Cursing the lack of proper seating, Felix nonetheless followed her silent instructions, crossing the room and taking a seat next to her towards the head of the bed. They sat like that in silence for an uncomfortable amount of seconds, a good two feet between them.

“So yeah,” said Felix finally. “You good?”

Annette tore her eyes from the window and looked at him for the first time. He was pretty sure she’d been crying. He pretended not to notice. “As well as can be expected,” she said, forcing a smile as she looked at him. “I’ll be fine; I just need to sleep, I think.”

Felix frowned as he looked at her. “You don’t have to pretend you’re okay if you’re not, you know,” he said stiffly. “I'm not going to care either way.”

Annette let her forced smile drop, slightly. “And what would you say differently if I told you I wasn’t okay? That I feel pretty awful?”

“I mean.” Felix shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Probably nothing. I don’t know. I’m just saying, it’s fine if you’re not fine.”

Annette let out a short laugh. “Thanks, Felix,” she said, turning once more to look at the sunset out her window. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They sat like that for a moment, Annette looking out the window and Felix looking at Annette. The same thought came back into his mind – he probably should have just left her alone. She really didn’t need anyone bothering her right now. Maybe if he was better with words, or good at advice, or at least decent at giving hugs, or good at anything besides swords. But at the moment, Felix realized there wasn’t a ton he could offer Annette. He glanced over at the door again, wondering if he needed to say anything before leaving or if he could just –

“Are you hurt?”

Felix snapped his head back towards Annette. She was looking at him again, leaning forward slightly as she scanned him up and down.

“What?”

“Are you hurt? There was a lot of blood this afternoon. Like, a lot of it on you.” Annette moved slightly closer to him as she continued to scrutinize. “I’m just wondering if you got injured during the fighting.”

“Oh.” Felix’s hand went instinctively to his side. “No, there were only a couple of scratches. I patched myself up; it’s fine.”

Annette’s eyes narrowed, instantly focusing on where his hands went. “Let me see,” she said, reaching her hand out slightly towards him. Felix leaned away from her.

“I said it’s fine,” he said, his voice taking on the icy quality he always used when he felt threatened. The last thing Annette needed was a medical patient – could she even use magic right now? Felix wasn’t sure, but he also didn’t want to find out the hard way that she couldn’t.

“Let me _see_,” Annette demanded. “Please, Felix.”

Felix sighed. If his goal was to make sure Annette got the rest she needed, picking a pointless fight with her wouldn’t really help matters. And he’d learned a long time ago that Annette could be surprisingly stubborn when she wanted something. He lifted his shirt up, slightly, so she could see the patchwork of bandages he’d left behind. Annette let out a small gasp. Felix winced, not at the injury but at her concern.

“It’s fine, Annette,” he said. “I can barely feel it; I’ve had way worse than this before – hey!” he cried. Annette had more or less lunged towards him to see the injury. She lightly traced her fingertips over the edges of the bandage, her eyes narrowing in concentration. Felix would have liked to put all of his attention away from the wound and towards Annette’s other hand, which had settled on his knee in order to steady her – but his attention snapped back into focus when he realized her fingers were glowing slightly at the tips, a telltale sign of the white magic that he could spot even before he felt the warmth of it against he skin.

“Woah, woah, hey!” Felix cried, snatching Annette’s hand away. “It’s fine, Annette. You don’t need to try to heal it.”

“It’s not fine, and I'm a healer. This is literally what I do.” Annette tried to shake her hand free Felix’s but he held on tight. She leveraged her weight onto his knee and leaned forward even more, shifting practically on top of him as she flailed her hand towards the poorly bandaged wound. Felix leaned out of her way while still holding her hand back, an awkward entanglement that left him pushed up against the pillows at the head of her bed.

“I didn’t come up here to talk to a healer,” he said tersely, swinging her arm away each time she tried to bring it closer to him. “I came up here to make sure you were okay. Asking you to use magic is kind of the opposite effect I was going for. Can you please stop worrying about other people and worry about yourself?”

“You’re one to talk, Felix,” Annette said with a trace of annoyance in her voice. “It wouldn’t kill you to actually let people tend to your injuries, and it might kill you if you don’t.” Her other hand glowed slightly and she reached for him again. Felix rolled his eyes and grabbed her other hand before she could move very far, inadvertently pulling her towards him. Speaking of the opposite effect, Felix thought as Annette fell against him, now closer to him than ever.

“I said it doesn’t hurt! I know basic first aid!” Felix said through gritted teeth. “Leave me alone.”

“You’re the only holding on to _me_,” Annette huffed.

“Yeah, but only because you came at me with your mage hands. I was acting in self def – ”

Felix and Annette’s argument was cut short as they heard footsteps outside of their door. Loud, stomping, seemingly-angry footsteps. Both Felix and Annette froze, and Annette seemed to realize for the first time what a compromising position they’d worked themselves into – Felix half-sitting, half-lying underneath Annette as he grasped onto both of her hands, simultaneously pushing her backwards and throwing her so off balance that she had more or less collapsed on top of him. Felix loosed his grip on her hands but realized that made matter worse as she fell towards him. Annette braced her arm against his shoulder as she swiveled towards the door. Felix closed his eyes and wondered what he could tell Ingrid if she walked in that wouldn’t make her kill him. The truth was maybe the worst possible option, but if anyone could get away with the story of “I decided to fight our only healer because she tried to be nice to me,” it was probably him.

Luckily for everyone involved, it was not Ingrid stomping outside of the room. Hearing the door across the hallway swing open and shut, Felix realized the mystery footsteps were going into his own room.

“I think it’s Sylvain,” he said softly, for some reason defaulting to a whisper.

He could feel the tension drop from Annette’s small frame. “Thank the goddess,” she said, also in half a whisper. “I was afraid it would be Ingrid. I mean, I like Ingrid!” she added, her cheeks reddening once again. “I just didn’t want her to – it would just be awkward to explain – it’s just this is also her room.”

“No, I get it,” Felix assured her. “Long story and all that.”

“Right,” said Annette.

They stared at each other for a beat, and then they both silently agreed on the most logical course of action: to get away from each other as quickly as possible, and to never speak of this again. With limbs untangled, hands dropped, and Felix grimly rubbing his shoulder where Annette had dug her elbow into it, they resumed their former distance of two feet between them.

“I don’t remember Sylvain being so . . . stomp-y,” Annette said. Her face was still a fiery shade of red; Felix imagined that he hardly fared better, although Annette had always been one to hilariously blush at any provocation. As if to provide a counter-measure for this, she refused to look at him, instead settling her gaze out the window by the bed once more.

Felix glanced at the door momentarily. “I mean, he usually isn’t,” he said. “He probably got into a fight with Ingrid; that usually throws him off balance for a bit.”

Annette’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “What do they have to fight about?” she asked. Felix momentarily envied her naïveté.

“The weather. The future of Fòdlan. The route to take. Each other,” Felix listed the possiblities as he thought of them. “Probably that last one. That’s usually what sets them off.”

“You sound pretty confident,” Annette muttered.

Felix sighed. “It’s been my life for the past, I don’t know, fifteen years or so.” He paused for a moment. “I think the stress of the war has made it worse, honestly. Or maybe Ingrid figured Sylvain would have grown up by now. It’s hard to tell, sometimes. . .” He trailed off as he looked up, realizing Annette was no longer listening to him. Instead, she had gone to the window and was peering out, the increasingly darkness outside causing her to cup her hands against the glass to get a better look.

“I think you’re right,” she said, gesturing frantically towards Felix. “Come look.”

Felix pulled himself off of the bed and stood besides Annette, peering out the window. At the far end of the inn’s grounds, he could make out a figure walking towards the stables, their posture straight and somehow radiating a righteous fury even from this distance.

“Ingrid?” Felix asked. He already knew the answer.

Annette nodded. “She looks just as mad as Sylvain sounded, doesn’t she?” She frowned for a moment. “She’s not, like, trying to leave, is she? That’s where we keep all our horses.”

Felix tried not to laugh, but a short, sardonic laugh escaped him anyways. “No, I don’t think Ingrid could ever get mad enough to leave us behind.” He looked out the window more closely, but Ingrid had disappeared into the dilapidated building that passed for a stable. “She was fretting about the horses earlier; I imagine she’s gone to check on them. Ingrid likes to solve problems when she’s upset. That’s why it’s so convenient that she’s friends with Sylvain; she just constantly getting stuff done.

“And what does Sylvain do when he’s upset?” Annette asked.

As if on cue, they heard the door across the hall swing open and slam shut. The footsteps continued back down the hall and out of earshot.

“He comes and finds me,” sighed Felix, closing his eyes with a grimace. “And if he can’t find me, he goes and finds trouble.

“Should you go after him?” Annette sounded worried.

Felix sighed, squeezing his eyes shut tighter, which did not have the intended effect of magically solving all his problems. “I think they’ll both be fine,” he said tightly. “They’ve been doing this whole song and dance for a long time; I’m more worried about you right now.”

He opened his eyes and looked down at her. Annette was staring at his side again as if she could still visualize the injury; the fingers on her left hand glowed with a telltale white light.

“Watch yourself, Dominic, I see what you’re up to,” Felix said as he took a step back from her. Annette had the decency to blush as light dropped away from her fingers. Felix arched an eyebrow at her. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to ask permission before putting your hands all over someone?”

Annette’s blush deepened. “You know, Felix, that doesn’t usually come up as a problem with healing,” she snapped. “Most people are delighted to not have their intestines spilling out of their sides anymore.”

“Yeah, well, most people didn’t watch you turn so pale they could practically see straight through you today,” Felix shot back. “I thought you were going to die out there, Annie.”

“Well, I didn’t. And I’ll be fine,” Annette replied tersely. “We’re in the middle of a war, you know. You can’t protect me forever.”

Felix tried to not let the bluntness of the statement destroy his composure. “I never said forever,” he mumbled. “Can you try resting for, I don’t know, one night?”

Annette sighed. “Generally speaking? No.”

“Yeah, I’m remembering that about you,” Felix said, with a tone that walked the line between nostalgic and rueful. “I’ll cut you a deal, Annette. You actually try to get some rest tonight, and you can heal whoever you want tomorrow, myself included.”

“Deal,” said Annette, holding out her hand solemnly. The handshake concluded and the bargain settled, they stood staring at each other for a moment.

“Well, I guess I should get out of your hair,” Felix muttered finally. “Probably easier for you to do that whole ‘rest’ thing without me lurking around.”

Annette nodded, looking back out the window. The sun had completely set at this point, making any view outside impossible. Her own candlelit reflection stared back at her. “I suppose. Goodnight, Felix,” she said softly.

Felix felt, not for the first time, that perhaps there was something he should have said in that moment, some way to make things okay, or bring things to a close, or say what he meant for once in his life.

He settled on, “Night.”

Moving away from Annette and walking across the small room, Felix scanned the space. Annette hadn’t touched the food, but there was plenty of water. She would only need to put out one remaining lamp, and she had candles by her bedside table in case she woke in the darkness. The window seemed sturdy, the door had a lock. He knew Ingrid would be coming back from the stables eventually, knew the inn was about as reputable as you could get this far from a city. Still, he could feel a slight wave of nerves as he looked around the room. That bandit had towered over Annette; she had been without options, had been utterly alone - -

“Felix, wait.”

Felix turned, his hand resting on the doorknob. Annette stood a few feet behind him, nervously crossing her arm and not quite making eye contact.

“Could you. I mean. If you’re not too tired. If you’re not. Maybe you are.”

Felix raised his eyebrows at her, but said nothing.

“Couldyoumaybejuststay,” Annette blurted out in one breath, practically one syllable. “Could you stay here, a bit longer. Could you not go. Please.”

“You want me to - ?” Felix gestured vaguely towards the twin bed he knew belonged to Ingrid for the night. He was having trouble imaging a scenario that didn’t involve the would-be knight yelling at him when she returned to her room, no doubt as exhausted as the rest of them.

“No, I mean, just for a while.” Annette began. “Just until I fall asleep.” She looked around the room in a scan that Felix recognized in himself. “I know things are okay. I know I’m on the second floor, and the windows have locks, and trained assassins aren’t coming to smother me in my sleep. I’m not worried about that. I’m not. It’s just - -” she let out a soft sigh. “Maybe just for 10 minutes? I know the doors lock behind you. I know that. I know I'm being silly right now - -”

“It’s okay, Annette,” Felix said. “I get it. I don’t . . . I don’t mind.”

Annette breathed a sigh of relief and gave him the first real smile he’d seen all day. He had the sudden realization that her worry in the moment before was at least in part about him, about what he’d say.

But then, what else could he say? Even if he wanted to leave, who else did she have right now? Even if Ingrid wasn’t off tending to horses in a righteous fury, she had never been one for comforting words where straightforward discussion would suffice. And Felix wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Sylvain say a single sincere thing to a woman since puberty. Probably not the best person to talk to right now. Felix knew Mercedes, or Ashe, or even the now-gone strange and silent professor would all be better people to assure Annette that she was safe, that she had friends, that she had something to hold on to.

But right now, all she had was him. He wished desperately that he deserved that. He knew desperately that she deserved better.

Felix gestured to the tray of untouched food on the side table. “I'm going to take this back down to the kitchen. I’m sure you need to . . . take your shoes off or whatever?” She wasn’t wearing shoes, he realized. “Get ready for bed. Or whatever. I’ll be back.” He paused in the doorway, realized she was still looking at him as if he might have some sort of answer she needed. “I promise,” he added before sliding out into the hallway.

The main floor of the inn was more or less abandoned at this time of night. The tables were cleared, the fire was burning down low in the fireplace, and the girl who had worked as server and bartender was nowhere to be seen. Sylvain and Ingrid were also gone, their former table completely cleared at this point. Felix hoped that Sylvain was keeping himself out of trouble, but didn’t have a ton of optimism on that front. Sylvain’s general coping strategy after a fight with Ingrid was to do something that would annoy her even more – after years of witnessing this Felix still wasn’t sure if his friends were aware of this pattern, but he could practically set a clock to it. At any rate, he thought darkly, he was in for a morning of icy stares and pointed silences tomorrow. The perfect end to their perfect road trip, he thought as he placed the plate of food on the edge of the counter of the bar, hoping this was the right place to leave it.

He hurried back up the stairs before either one of them could come back into the lobby. Dimitri had always played peacemaker during one of Sylvain and Ingrid’s dust-ups. Felix had preferred to just avoid them altogether. Old habits die hard.

By the time he got back to her room, Annette had already tucked herself into bed. She sat with the pillows propped up against the headboard, propped up to be half-sitting underneath the meager selection of blankets the inn had provided. As Felix let himself into the room, she was in the process of plaiting her hair into a braid, looping the last ends together neatly with a look of intense concentration that applied to everything she did in life.

“You’re back,” she said with a hint of surprise as she looked over at him.

“Yeah, it’s not really a long walk to the kitchens and back. You good?”

She nodded silently, hugging her arms against her knees. Felix looked around the room again, wishing the proprietors had been more invested in interior design; he would have loved a chair at the moment.

Annette intuited what he was thinking about. She nervously glanced over at Ingrid’s bed, realizing the flaw in her plan. “I guess you probably shouldn’t take Ingird’s. . .” she trailed off, whether from tiredness or embarrassment, Felix wasn’t sure.

“Nah, I’m in for enough lectures from her if we’re heading to Garreg Mach together,” Felix said, walking past the bed and close to Annette’s. “It’s fine, though. I’ll just, um. I’ll just sit here.” He paused, and then slid down to the floor against Annette’s bed, his legs jutting out towards the door. He craned his head to look up to Annette, who peered over at him from her perch on the bed above him. “Totally comfortable.”

Annette wrinkled her nose as she looked at him; a habit he remembered from their school days. “Are you sure?”

“It’s fine. It’s great. If any – what was it? – if any assassins break in, I’ll throw them out the window for you.”

Annette let out a distinctly unladylike snort at this. He remembered that from school, too. He’d forgotten how cute it was. “Thanks, Felix,” she murmured. She peered over him again. “You sure you’re comfortable down there?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s not like I'm staying the whole night,” Felix told her. He frowned slightly, puling on her blankets impatiently for a moment. “You know, you generally have to lay down if you’re going to fall asleep. Stop staring at me and start counting sheep.”

Annette made a face at him, but his point still stood. She leaned over towards the side table and quickly blew out the last remaining lit candle, plunging the room into darkness. Felix sat in the dark listening the sheets shuffle soft above him as Annette settled back into her pillows. The sound simultaneously felt mundane and overly intimate – or maybe it felt so intimate because it was so mundane. If – or when – Felix had imagined Annette falling asleep next to him, the circumstances had been wildly different – but the reality of it made him blush, all the same.

“Do you think anyone else is going to be at the reunion?” Annette’s voice came from above him, slightly whispering even though there was no one else in the room to disturb.

Felix looked up and saw her peering over the edge of the bed at him, barely visible in the darkness even though she only a few inches away. “I don’t see how a conversation is going to help you fall asleep, Annette,” he said dryly.

“Maybe your life is really boring, did you ever think of that?” Felix’s jaw dropped slightly in surprised, but Annette giggled at her own joke and he was happy to just hear her laughing again. She had laughed like it was breathing before the war.

“But really,” she added. “It’s nice to hear a voice. It’ll help me fall asleep, I promise.”

“Right,” said Felix, unconvinced. Talking had always been Annette’s strong suit, not his. Still, he could try. “So we know that you, me, Sylvain and Ingrid will be there. That’s half the house right there.”

“And the rest?” Annette’s voice was growing less articulate. Either she’d buried her face in a pillow of she actually was already half-asleep.

“I’m sure you’ve heard more from Mercedes than I have, but I think Ingrid mentioned that Mercedes planned to make the journey with a group of monks. I think she’s been living at various churches for the past few years anyways? A move to Garreg March isn’t that far out of the question, if she can find a traveling party.”

“Mm, yes, Mercie will be there,” Annette said sleepily. Felix felt her hand brush against his shoulder and realized she had thrown her arm over the side of the bed. She waved it vaguely in the darkness before Felix realized his cue and reached up to hold on to her hand. He could feel the slow, steady beat of her pulse against his, which was sure had doubled in the last few seconds. Entwining his fingers with hers, Felix continued.

“I ran into Ashe a couple of times last year during some border skirmishes against the Empire. I think he’s been stationed close to the border for the past couple of years. Castle Gaspard is well-placed for him to make it to the monastery, although I’m a bit surprised that he sided with the church and the kingdom at all. A knight to the end, I suppose,” Felix said, mentally running down a list of their House’s inner circle from five years ago. “I haven’t heard anything from Dedue; I don’t know anyone who has. Communication out of Fhirdiad has been unreliable at best, and if that’s the last place Dimitri. . , the last place we know Dimitri travelled to, then it’s probably where Dedue went. Not a lot of chance of him getting out of Fhirdiad, if he went there.” Felix paused, and then added, more to himself than anyone else, “And we won’t have Dimiti with us, of course.”

The next day and after, Felix was never sure whose grip tightened when he brought up Dimitri. He chose to remember it as Annette’s.

“My old man still thinks he’s alive,” Felix muttered, staring forward into the darkness. “He’s a fool. The way he sends out forces against the Empire troops, the way he consults with other lords in the Kingdom – it’s like he’s waiting for the boar to return from the dead. He was like that when Gl – after Duscur. He didn’t believe the news at first. That’s the reason I agreed to come with Ingrid, I think. The north of the kingdom is choking to death on its own memories. I was choking with it.”

Annette didn’t respond, except for an incoherent murmur that might not have even been speech. Felix plowed ahead, as if he couldn’t stop now that he’d started talking.

“I don’t see why the old man clings to the image of Dimitri, regardless. I saw him before he left for Fhirdiad. He - he was so different, Annette. He was completely gone. A part of me always thought, back at school, that maybe I’d get Dimitri back, that there was a part of him that could be redeemed. It wasn’t like that when I saw him last. He’s just . . . he was just gone. My father thinks he’s still alive, but he was never alive. He died in Duscur, the same as all the rest. We were just too stupid to realize it. But in the past few years it’s become undeniable.” Felix paused, staring up into the darkness where he knew Annette was within reach, if he only stretched his hand out. “Is it so wrong that I’m glad you’ll never see him like that?”

Annette didn't reply, which didn’t surprise him. Felix doubted he would have been able to say much of anything if he hadn’t been fairly certain that she’d already drifted off to sleep. Her breathing had become regular, soft and steady and like the songs that Felix carried with him in his mind and heard as he fell asleep each night. He realized that her hand had relaxed against his; he was the only one still gripping on. She was asleep, and perhaps her dreams would be better than whatever reality he could give her. There was nothing more he could do for her now. And yet, Felix found himself unable to stand, unable to break away for at least another moment. Give it five minutes, he thought to himself, and then he would get up, lock the door behind him, crawl into his own bed, and hope his sleep was deep enough to block out Sylvain’s snoring. For now, he pressed the back of Annette’s hand into his cheek, resting his face against their entwined fingers, and replayed the day in his head. He thought about Annette’s screams for her men, and her breath on his neck as she held on to him, and how awful it was that anyone could call him a hero. He thought about how unheroic he felt, today and yesterday and for the last five years and for most of his life. He thought about how he didn’t want to miss Glenn, and he didn’t want to miss Dimitri, and how he missed them anyways, and how he couldn’t save them. He wondered, his thoughts growing increasingly slow and disconnected and unsteady, what there was left for him to hold on to.

***

Ingrid stomped back from the stables in high dudgeon. The attention to the horses had been earnest but substandard, and it had taken her half the evening just to undo the shoddy workmanship, let alone to confirm that the animals would be safe and comfortable for the remainder of the night.

In her heart, she knew there was no sense in being angry at the stable boy, who looked as if he wasn’t yet thirteen, and who she could only imagine had been pulled into adulthood by the war even if he wasn’t sent to the front lines. She knew that the knights she loved to read about would seek to protect children forced to care for their families instead of having childhoods, not wildly critique their lack of experience. But it was easier being annoyed at the faceless stable boy (he had a face, she just couldn’t exactly remember it) than at the actual source of her agitation. Her argument with Sylvain had started off almost as banter, with her sniping at him as the pretty young barmaid walked away from their table. Sylvain had answered that she should have a little fun once in a while, Ingrid had shot back that he should take life seriously, he had told her to stop trying to sound like Dimitri or that she sounded too much like Dimitri or something along those lines. The details didn’t matter; it was the name of her fallen king that had tightened her chest with a pure, searing anger.

It had gotten uglier from there. But still, that wasn’t the stable boy’s fault.

Ingrid’s mood only soured as she walked past the door to Sylvain and Felix’s shared room. A light still shone from under the door, and judging by the sounds coming from inside the room, the pretty barmaid’s laughter at Sylvain’s jokes had been genuine. Ingrid closed her eyes and rubbed her aching temples with one hand, wondering how long Sylvain had waited after she had stomped out of the bar to turn his attention fully to the girl. She wished she could believe he had at least taken a moment to watch her go, that he had at least contemplated following after her. She wasn’t sure why she wanted that, but she wanted it all the same.

“Well,” Ingrid whispered to herself, unlocking the door to her own room. “I hope Felix has found a nice floor to sleep on somewhere.”

As she swung the door to her room open, the light from the hall fell across Felix, sleeping on her floor.

He had fallen asleep sitting up, his back against Annette’s bed, his legs sprawled out in front of him. His head fell back against the side of the bed, vaguely turned towards Annette’s arm, which hung over the mattress limply. Her fingers lightly grazed his cheek now and then, a connection that didn’t seem solid enough to wake either of them up any time soon.

For a brief moment, Ingrid’s mind raced through the best strategies for waking Felix up and kicking him out without disturbing Annette – she was sure the girl could use all the sleep she could get. But she begrudgingly remembered the light from under Sylvain’s door. Not a whole lot of options for Felix, then. With friends like these.

Ingrid sighed, shutting the door behind her and kicking off her shoes as she walked into the room. It wasn’t like Felix didn’t know what she looked like when she slept; she could distinctly remember a heated childhood debate about who snored the loudest. With any luck, he would wake up before dawn, and she wouldn’t have to talk to him about this at all. And if not, she could shoo him out in the morning just as easily as she could shoo him out now.

Ingrid flopped onto her bed, not bothering to change – she’d lent her only night dress to Annette, anyways. She was vaguely grateful for the soft snoring coming from her right, the way Felix and Annette’s breathing was almost, but not entirely, in sync. It gave her brain something to listen to, rather than recreating the moans and giggles she’d walked by moments earlier.

One more day until Garreg Mach, she reminded herself as she drifted off to sleep. And no matter what or who awaited them there, at least they would be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I know we all love the tried and true fanfiction trope of "but there was only one bed", but have you considered its lesser-known cousin, "there were actually two beds but one character still sleeps on the floor for some reason"? I think it's really going to catch on, kids.
> 
> I'm extremely obsessed with the five year gap in Three Houses. What's everybody up to! What's going on! What salon did they go to to get all those cool haircuts? These are crucial questions.
> 
> I'm glad to get this one out into the world; it took a stupidly long time to write for whatever reason. Probably because everyone is sad, and you can't make jokes when you're sad, and nerds making jokes is literally all I like to write about. Still, thanks for sticking with me until chapter 2! Hopefully there was something worth reading along the way.


End file.
